Category Archives: Violence Against Women

Today is International Women’s Day. While there is some progress to celebrate, women keep losing rights at an exponential rate in this country. Despite the fact that women comprise 51% of the world’s population, women remain one of the most systematically exploited, discriminated against, and abused groups. It is high time that we called for the Fifth World Congress on Women.

If one doubts that there is a full-scale War on Women, just consider these recent news stories:

It is important to note that the metastasizing assault on women’s human rights and liberties has everything to do with the takeover of our government by religious zealots who would turn our country into a theocracy. Christian fundamentalism with its long list of hated freedoms and its misogyny has been spreading virulently like a pestilence and has infiltrated all levels of our government, at the local and state level, in the courts, the legislature, and even the White House for 8 years under George W. Bush, and women are far the worse for it. This is reflected in places like Iran with the resurgence of fundamentalist Islam.

If we want to preserve what is left of our democracy and regain the ground we have lost, we must excise the cancerous religious tyranny that has been allowed to grow that continues to eat away at women’s basic human rights, liberties, autonomy, and agency by confronting and condemning all forms of domination of and violence towards women and girls everywhere and affirm women’s and girls’ right to live in a world free from misogyny and male supremacy. A woman’s sovereign right over her life and her body MUST BE RESPECTED!!!

We will work for gender parity in the form of fair and equal representation in government, an immediate end to the War on Women and ALL wars, ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and we MUST have a 5th World Congress on Women. Please sign the petition at:Support a UN 5th World Conference on Women (5WCW).

This short film presents a scenario in which men live in a world where they are harassed and abused by women like women are harassed and abused by men, a role reversal of our sexist, patriarchal, male-supremacist society.

The topic of switching gender roles has been explored many times before in comedic form, among them “Tootsie”, “All of Me”, and very incisively in the seriocomic 90’s Ellen Barkin movie, “Switch” but this short film portrays the darker reality of what it is like to live with the daily onslaught of sexual harassment and gender inequality in a way that hits home emotionally and hopefully allows men to gain a modicum of insight and empathy into women’s experience.

In honor of Independence Day, the Women’s Declaration that was written for the femGA of the National Gathering in Philadelphia in 2012 is hereby featured as a reminder that half the human population in this country is still waiting for full Constitutional rights and to raise awareness of the global liberation of women worldwide. We demand ratification of the ERA and CEDAW, 50/50 gender representation, and an end to the WAR ON WOMEN that proceeds as we speak in Congress!

The Declaration of, by, and for Women

We, the Women of the United States of America on behalf of all women everywhere, hereby declare that we are inviolable sovereign entities whose worth is self-evident and whose life, liberty, pursuit of happiness and self-determination are inalienable fundamental human rights

Whereas Women have been, are, and will be the basic human template, bearers and sustainers of life, the gardeners, the herbalists, the healers, the nurturers, the teachers, scientists, legislators, doctors, jurists, athletes, inventors, artists, makers of music and makers of home, the poets, the writers, the breadwinners, the builders of community and nations, the cornerstone of society and the family

Whereas the rule by patriarchy for thousands of years has resulted in our rights being abridged, our being treated as property, our bodies being assaulted and sold, the Earth, our mother, plundered and polluted by profligate greed, our peace destroyed by continual war, our communities and families broken, and our institutions corrupted

Whereas patriarchy has perpetuated male dominance by:

Systematically excluding women from the realms of power, blocking the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, working against equal representation in government, refusing to ratify the CEDAW convention, and passing discriminatory legislation despite the fact that we are 51% of the population, pay taxes, and are your mothers, grandmothers, sisters, daughters, and wives

Denying women economic parity by relying on women’s unpaid domestic labor, raising of children, caring for elders or loved ones who are chronically ill, denying women promotions, equal pay for equal work, working against increases in minimum wage and cost-of-living increases to Social Security

Attempting to control women’s reproduction by blocking access to sex education, family planning, birth control methods, pregnancy termination and other medical procedures, thereby restricting women’s autonomy and ability to reach full potential and even endangering women’s lives and health

Whereas the world is dangerously out-of-balance due to the abuse of power characteristic of patriarchy and empire-building, and as there will never be an end to conflict and injustice or lasting peace and harmony so long as women are mistreated and live in one form of bondage or another in societies ruled by men

We the Women hereby declare our independence from sanction or approval by a patriarchal culture or world system. We abjure and condemn all forms of domination of and violence towards women and girls everywhere. We declare our human right to live in a world free from misogyny and male supremacy that oppresses us and attempts to alienate us from our sisters in the struggle for truth, justice, fairness, equality, and peace

We unite in spirit and in action with all women and all men of conscience who join us in the struggle against the oppression of patriarchy until every woman in every nation everywhere across the globe can live in a world that is safe, harmonious, and respectful of life and nature, where women and the sacred feminine are again respected and honored as was the case in antiquity, and where we can live in peace and prosperity as many matri-focal societies have done

We hereby join in solidarity with our sisters throughout the world, across the boundaries of space and time, in acknowledging the women who came before us and who will follow us, in acceptance of all ages, colors, socioeconomic classes, national origins, ethnicities, sexual preferences, political affinities, abilities, and spiritual practices, in reclaiming our rightful place in roles of leadership in the family, the workplace, society, worship, and government.

We demand gender parity in the form of fair and equal representation in government, an immediate end to the War on Women and ALL wars, and ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). We reclaim our long denied birthright to fully and freely explore and utilize our gifts, talents, intellect, spirituality, emotional sensibilities, sexuality, creativity, and power and declare this day, July 1, 2012 as our day of GLOBAL LIBERATION!

Sexual violence against women is all too “normal” and accepted. We must actively resist oppression against women in all its forms. The violence, objectification, sexual harassment, and inequality that women experience is a product of a patriarchal system and of institutionalized sexism, and can only be solved by a grassroots movement that fights those root causes. Women themselves hold the power to bring an end to sexual violence. Every single right we as women have today is the result of a fight-back movement. Join us to carry on that legacy of struggle on International Women’s Day for a rally to end violence against women. We need a Women’s Spring all over the world! Join us and Occupy Patriarchy!

The Senate version of the Violence Against Women Act passed the House today, a victory for all women! Women are standing up and demanding action more than ever before–we stood up and voted more women into office and put pressure on this congress to get past the partisan bickering, recognize women’s human rights, and stop the misogynist discrimination against LGBT, Native-American, and immigrant women and sign it! Sisterhood is POWERFUL!!

Watch the YouTube video (above) of the V-Day: 1 Billion Rising Anthem, “Break the Chain” from the website www.vday.org !

WORD – Women Organized to Resist and Defend organized a march and a rally in Los Angeles on August 26, 2012 and Women-Occupy was there in support. The signs say it all, summarizing the outrage at the War on Women being waged across the country by the patriarchal, fuedalistic religious right who are attempting to undermine our democracy and replace it with a male supremacist theocracy–a favorite read, “Gender Violence is a Men’s Issue!”